ing we cannot call it-and the suitable language, with confused images, and arranged in a style equally difficult to understand, and unpleasing to read. We are rejoiced that we have turned back to this first judgment— for it is no light advantage to us, who write for love of the cause, and not for the sake of display, to be able to give the very ideas which had arisen in our minds in the words of a work of such reputation as the Edinburgh Review bore in the days of its zenith. Indeed it is not a little gratifying to find that such a writer as the author of the following passages forestalled us in so many of our ideas. It is more years than we like to mention since we read this paper, and we had only a general recollection of its tendency: we were, therefore, little short of startled when we found our own sentiments in such powerful language. We are quite aware that there are some who regard what we have lately said on the matters we are about to bring into question as fit only to be sneered at. Of course we cannot attach great weight to such opinions; still we are most glad to have such strong authority to back us.-The Italics are our own : The leading vice in Burns's character, and the cardinal deformity indeed of all his productions, was his contempt, or affectation of contempt, for prudence, decency, and regularity; and his admiration of thoughtlessness, oddity, and vehement sensibility;-his belief, in short, in the dispensing power of genius and social feeling, in all matters of morality and common sense. This is the very slang of the worst German plays, and the lowest of our town-made novels; nor can any thing be more lamentable, than that it should have found a patron in such a man as Burns, and communicated to a great part of his productions a character of immorality, at once contemptible and hateful. It is but too true, that men of the highest genius have frequently been hurried by their passions into a violation of prudence and duty; and there is something generous, at least, in the apology which their admirers may make for them, on the score of their keener feelings, and habitual want of reflection. But this apology, which is quite unsatisfactory in the mouth of another, becomes an insult and an absurdity whenever it proceeds from their own. Am an may say of his friend, that he is a noble-hearted fellow,-too generous to be just, and with too much spirit to be always prudent and regular. But he cannot be allowed to say even this of himself; and still less to represent himself as a hairbrained sentimental soul, constantly carried away by fine fancies and visions of love and philanthropy, and born to confound and despise the cold-blooded sons of prudence and sobriety. This apology evidently destroys itself; for it shows that conduct to be the result of deliberate system, which it affects at the same time to justify as the fruit of mere thoughtlessness and casual impulse. Such protestations, therefore, will always be treated, as they deserve, not only with contempt, but with incredulity; and their magnanimous authors set down as determined profligates, who seek to disguise their selfishness under a name somewhat less revolting. That profligacy is almost always selfishness, and that the excuse of impetuous feeling can hardly ever be justly pleaded for those who neglect the ordinary duties of life, must be apparent, we think, even to the least reflecting of those sons of fancy and song. It requires no habit of deep thinking, nor any thing more, indeed, than the information of an honest heart, to perceive that it is cruel and base to spend, in vain superfluities, that money which belongs of right to the pale industrious tradesman and his famishing infants; or that it is a vile prostitution of language, to talk of that man's generosity or goodness of heart, who sits raving about friendship and philanthropy in a tavern, while his wife's heart is breaking at her cheerless fireside, and his children pining in solitary poverty. The concluding passage of this we consider most just and beautiful. It is singular that the critic applied no direct blame to Tam O'Shanter, when he incidentally speaks of it; and yet these are the very ideas that the following passage suggested to us, which is at the opening of that poem : "While we sit bousing at the nappy, Why, the two passages, prose and verse, represent exactly the two different ways in which a sensible and feeling man, and a drunken and brutal reprobate, look at the same thing. Why should the wife have the blame of sullenness and sulk thrown upon her, because her profligate husband leaves her to sit "by her cheerless fire-side"? He de serves it, if she do receive him with coldness and reproof-but alas! the chances are fifty to one that her only reproaches are silent tears and heart-break. And how is the man described who causes all this? "Ae market night, Tam had got planted unco right; Care, mad to see a man sae happy, We beg our readers will pay particular attention to this passage, for it is that from which the admirable specimen of art, which has occasioned this notice, is taken. Let them recollect that the wife is left pining at home, and then let them ask themselves what sort of a heart that man must have had, who describes in these glowing colours of fellowfeeling this conduct of the husband abroad. Our English readers too must remember, that the direct translation of the line which gives the reason for Tam loving Johnny "like a very brother," is that "They had been drunk for weeks together."!! It is our opinion that this poem fully substantiates all the accusa tions of bad taste, bad feeling, low profligacy, and indecent writing, which have before now been brought against Burns. There is a couplet in the foregoing passage, which nothing could have induced us to quote but the necessity of shewing that our accusations are not lightly grounded. It conveys ideas which are the very last that should ever be publicly pictured. And we have thus been driven, that we may not be accused of slander and injustice, to print expressions which we strongly reprobate. We regret, therefore, infinitely, that the seeing these statues involves the putting the poem into the hands of every one who goes for there are passages in it which cannot bear the truest criterion of propriety-they are quite unfit to be read aloud to women. We hope, however, that the strong Scotch dialect will save a considerable number from annoyance. On this point, also, the Edinburgh Review' agrees with us:— "Instead of suing for a smile, or melting in a tear, his muse deals in nothing but locked embraces and midnight rencontres; and even in his complimentary effusions to ladies of the highest rank, is for straining them to the bosom of their impetuous votary. It is easy, accordingly, to see from his correspondence that many of his female patronesses shrank from the vehement familiarities of his admiration." The bragging praise, indeed, which Burns lavishes upon drunkenness the most bestial, and sensuality the most gross, is of great frequency in his writings. He is perpetually (says the Edinburgh Review) making a parade of his thoughtlessness,inflammability and imprudence, and talking with much complacency and exultation of the offence he has occasioned to the sober and correct part of mankind. This odious slang infects almost all his prose and a very great proportion of his poetry; and is, we are persuaded, the chief, if not the only source of the disgust with which, in spite of his genius, we know that he is regarded by many very competent and liberal judges. We hope that we are at least liberal judges, whether we be competent or no. But the accused person is not the only party concerned. Society has a right to a voice. We shall now notice only two points more. The first is, we consider Burns's conduct after his marriage wholly to exclude him from the slightest pretence to goodness of heart. On the contrary, it stamps him with the most despicable selfishness. He had obtained, by the exertion of his talents a full competence-not riches— but more than he had ever possessed before, and quite sufficient to keep him and his family in comfort and happiness, with any thing approaching to the denial of his selfish vices. But his wife he treated as Tam O'Shanter did his-drunkenness and debauchery of every kind. constantly kept him from her-and she, poor, poor creature, had married him under circumstances which would have bound for ever any being with a heart. The other point we wish to notice is this. Burns's vices have been defended as those of a man of genius. The Edinburgh Review,' in the quotation we have given, says, it is quite unsatisfactory. It is more, it is a contradiction. For, from him to whom the strongest powers of mind are given the most virtuous conduct should be demanded. Burns had great gifts; and, with them, we think it undeniable that both in his life, which has been so unduly brought forward, and also in his writings, he has done much evil, and very little good. MUTILATON NOTED CASE OF EAST RETFORD.-STATE OF PARTIES. THE Clare Election and the "East Retford Question" are minute causes from which unexpected and remarkable political consequences have resulted. By the first event Catholic Emancipation has been unquestionably prematurely, though in good time, brought about; by the second, an administration was broken up, and Cabinet measures imposed on the king, which ultimately accomplished the settlement of a great national agitation originating in the unjust and antiquated disabilities of his Roman Catholic subjects. It does not require the gift of prophecy to foretell that the East Retford Question, now again adjourned to the next session of parliament, is destined to be the causation of other important political events; and it will infallibly revive the public attention, and more especially that of the populous and wealthy unrepresented towns of the United Kingdom, to the state of the representation, and to the possibility of amending the House of Commons, by the extension of the elective franchise to such towns as Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, and Glasgow. An intellectual revolution is in active progress and operation, which no monarchies or aristocracies can extinguish. Knowledge is the great principle of ignition, which, combining with wealth and population, illuminates the political atmosphere of England and Europe. Political institutions will receive the benefit of the light, however the incumbents of places, pensions, and sinecures, may vainly try to shut their eyes to it, for they can no more resist it than the midnight owl by his screams can prevent the dawn of the rising sun. PUBLIC OPINION has become a fourth estate of the constitution; we live to see John Lord Eldon (as Ex-Chancellor) lamenting and exposing the abuses of the Courts of Equity, and Lords Winchilsea and Chandos praying for parliamentary reform! The little borough which gave birth to the "East Retford Question" (which involves the right of the large unrepresented towns to the elective franchise) has thus gained a notoriety which will justify a few antiquarian researches into its political origin and conduct. East Retford is a borough, market town, and parish, in the hundred of Bassetlaw, in the county of Nottingham. It is situated near the river Idle, 145 miles from London, and contains about 450 houses and 2000 inhabitants. Its representative history informs us that it first sent members to parliament in the 9th of Edward II., but never returned again till the 13th of Elizabeth, when representatives were a second time summoned, though by the Journals (April 6, 1571) the legality of the writ appears to have been questioned. The usual misdemeanours were soon commenced at the succeeding elections of its members. In 1700, the bailiffs of the borough, partisans of two candidates, in a severe contest, began the system of disfranchising many legal voters and enfranchising for present purposes many not entitled to vote, which with other "undue practices" brought their worships before a committee of the House of Commons. An election committee JUNE, 1829. 2 S on that occasion reported that the right of election was in the burgesses being freemen, including non-resident as well as resident burgesses, and thus established at once the nucleus of future and incurable corruption and expense. This determination in favour of the cause of non-resident voters was come to by the House of Commons, notwithstanding the following custom and ordinance of the borough, made in 1624-" for disabling the burgess to vote at any election or elections whatsoever within the borough, who shall remove his dwelling out of the borough, and continue so for one whole year, provided in case he did return again, and live within the borough, he should vote, while he lived therein." Many succeeding elections were the costly and corrupt scenes of severe local contest and disputed returns. The municipal government of the town is vested in that excellently adapted machinery of an English election and close borough-a corporation. The component parts of this patent machine consist, in the present case, of twelve al dermen, from whom the senior bailiff must be annually chosen; the junioř bailiff from amongst the freemen, who is an alderman during his year of office, makes the golden number of thirteen. Such an establishment, in England, necessarily creates a demand for a Patron-in other words, a purchaser of elective franchises. The demand usually finds a supply, which, in the case of East Retford, has been provided by the "NEWCASTLE FAMILY," the three last Dukes of that name having been successively High Stewards, and the corporation basking of course "under the influence" of their Graces. A century since, the number of freemen, " honest and true," did not exceed 50. When the numbers were thus limited, the machine was neither very troublesome nor extremely costly. Woe then to the poor opponent of a noble patron. But in the passage of time the free commonalty quadrupled, and its " political character" became essen tially changed; in plain language, the freemen discovered their intrinsic value, they went to market themselves. This period, in the life of a political borough of small dimensions, is eventful and anxious. Great and violent are the struggles between the patron and dependents; the slave bursting his manacles is not more to be dreaded, than the infant resolution of the freemen to shake off the yoke of patronage. The first effort of independence was made by the freemen in 1768, who invited Sir Cecil Wray, a neighbouring country gentleman, and a member of the Bill of Rights' Society to represent them; and he was returned in opposition to the Duke of Newcastle and the corporation. In 1790, the worthy old Major Cartwright was invited, and would have been returned by the majority of voters, but his stern commonwealth principles would not submit to the ad valorem practice, which even with independent members was the consideration of a seat. Sir John Ingleby, a gentleman of less scrupulous peculiarities, was returned in the Major's interest. In 1796, the "independent party," (or salesmen in their own right) for the first time returned two members. This offence against the hereditary right of the Dukery required a cunningly devised remedy, and thereupon the creatures of the Corporation had recourse to the expedient of manufacturing thirty-eight |